Art and Identity: Visual Culture, Politics and Religion in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Hardback) | Released: 01 Mar 2012

This book provides a fully contextualised overview on aspects of visual culture, and how this was the product of patronage, politics, and religion in some European countries between the 13th and 17th centuries. The research that is showcased here offers new perspectives on the conception, production and reception of artworks as a means of projecting core values, ideals, and traditions of individuals, groups, and communities. This volume features contributions from established scholars and new researchers in the field, and examines how art contributed to the construction of identities by means of new archival research and a thorough interdisciplinary approach. The authors suggest that the use of conventions in style and iconography allowed the local and wider community to take part in rituals and devotional practices where these works were widely recognized symbols. However, alongside established traditions, new, ad-hoc developments in style and iconography were devised to suit individual requirements, and these are fully discussed in relevant case-studies. This book also contributes to a new understanding of the interaction between artists, patrons, and viewers in Medieval and Renaissance times.
About the Author: Sandra Cardarelli graduated with a PhD in History of Art at the University of Aberdeen funded by the AHRC. She has contributed papers and published on the artistic output of the diocese of Grosseto, in Southern Tuscany, in the fifteenth century. Her major interests are in late Medieval and Renaissance Sienese visual culture, parish research, and cultural history. Emily Jane Anderson is currently completing her doctoral research at the University of Glasgow on Vitale da Bologna and his Followers: the Eastern European Vitaleschi. She is the recipient of scholarships and grants from the AHRC and the University of Glasgow. She has presented papers and published on Bolognese trecento art and New Kingdom Egyptian Sculpture. John Richards is Senior Lecturer and Head of History of Art at the University of Glasgow. He has published on Trecento Italian art, and has contributed to Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, Apollo, Church Monuments, and The Sculpture Journal. His interests lie in North Italian art between c. 1300 and c. 1450, and particularly on the work of Altichiero and his contemporaries, as well as on patronage in Verona and Padua.